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THE  NEW 
ORDER  OF  SAINTHOOD 


THE  NEW 
ORDER  OF  SAINTHOOD 


BY 
HENRY  FAIRFIELD   OSBORN 

LL.D.,  Hon.  D.Sc,  Camb. 

RESEARCH    PROFESSOR    OF    ZOOLOGY, 
COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


NEW   YORK,   MCMXIII 


KxjiJu^ 


PRINTED   AND   COPYRIGHTED 

BY 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

OCTOBER,    I913 


5 n  .pit 
0v\ 


THE  NEW 
ORDER  OF  SAINTHOOD 

IN  a  very  beautiful  address1  before 
the  students  of  the  University  of 
Edinburgh  Sir  William  Osier  opens 
with  the  words:  "To  man  there  has 
been  published  a  triple  gospel  —  of  his 
soul,  of  his  goods,  of  his  body." 

What  is  and  what  shall  be  the  atti- 
tude of  the  Church  toward  the  gospel 
of  the  body,  toward  the  men  who  have 
given  us  this  gospel?  The  question 
turns  our  thoughts  at  once  to  the  lead- 
ing and  greatest  exponent  of  this  gos- 
pel, and  backward  to  the  early  cen- 
turies of  the  Church  before  there  had 
arisen  any  divorce  between  the  study 
of  nature  and  the  matters  of  the  spirit. 

1  Osier,  Sir  Wm.     "Man's  Redemption  of  Man." 
l2mo.     (Paul  B.  Hoeber,  New  York.) 

I 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

Among  all  the  great  scientific  men 
whom  the  nineteenth  century  produced 
Pasteur  ranks  supreme  as  a  benefactor 
of  mankind.  He  played  the  original 
and  creative  part  in  the  movement  for 
the  prevention  and  relief  of  human  suf- 
fering which  Sir  William  Osier  has 
aptly  termed  "Man's  Redemption  of 
Man."  It  is  far  under  the  truth  to 
say  that  he  has  saved  more  lives  than 
Napoleon  destroyed.  In  Nature  he 
found  the  causes  of  a  very  large  part  of 
human  suffering;  in  Nature  he  also 
found  the  means  of  controlling  or  avert- 
ing suffering.  His  attitude  toward  his 
fellow  men  was  one  of  noble  compas- 
sion. His  first  trial  of  the  hydro- 
phobia serum  with  a  young  sufferer 
brought  to  him,  his  agony  of  mind  lest 
the  remedy  itself  might  be  the  means 
of  causing  death,  his  joy  as  the  child 
was  restored   in  perfect  health  to  its 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

parents,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
episodes  in  human  history.  As  recited 
by  Radot: 

"Pasteur  was  going  through  a  suc- 
cession of  hopes,  fears,  anguish,  and  an 
ardent  yearning  to  snatch  little  Meister 
from  death;  he  could  no  longer  work. 
At  nights  feverish  visions  came  to  him 
of  this  child,  whom  he  had  seen  playing 
in  the  garden,  suffocating  in  the  mad 
struggles  of  hydrophobia,  like  the  dying 
child  he  had  seen  at  the  Hopital  Trous- 
seau in  1880.  Vainly  his  experimental 
genius  assured  him  that  the  virus  of 
that  most  terrible  of  diseases  was  about 
to  be  vanquished,  that  humanity  was 
about  to  be  delivered  from  this  dread 
horror  —  his  human  tenderness  was 
stronger  than  all,  his  accustomed  ready 
sympathy  for  the  sufferings  and  anxie- 
ties of  others  was  for  the  nonce  cen- 
tred in  'the  dear  lad/  .  .  ." 

3 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

"Cured  from  his  wounds,  delighted 
with  all  he  saw,  gayly  running  about 
as  if  he  had  been  in  his  own  Alsatian 
farm,  little  Meister,  whose  blue  eyes 
now  showed  neither  fear  nor  shyness, 
merrily  received  the  last  inoculation;  in 
the  evening,  after  claiming  a  kiss  from 
'Dear  Monsieur  Pasteur/  as  he  called 
him,  he  went  to  bed  and  slept  peace- 
fully/'1 

The  life  of  Pasteur  is  typical  of  that 
of  many  students  of  Nature,  of  less 
genius,  perhaps,  but  of  equal  devotion 
and  self-sacrifice.  It  is  interesting  to 
imagine  what  tributes  might  have  been 
rendered  to  Pasteur  if  he  had  lived  in 
the  period  of  the  early  saints  of  the 
Church,  and  had  won  the  love  of  his 
generation  and  the  reverence  of  suc- 

1  Vallery-Radot,  Rene.  "The  Life  of  Pasteur." 
Translation  of  Mrs.  R.  L.  Devonshire.  (London, 
Archibald  Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  1906,  pp.  416, 417.) 

4 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

ceeding  generations  by  his  mighty 
works.  It  is  interesting  to  surmise 
what  would  have  been  the  attitude  of 
the  early  Church  toward  such  a  bene- 
factor of  mankind.  Our  belief  to-day 
is  that  Pasteur  should  stand  as  a  sym- 
bol of  the  profound  and  intimate  rela- 
tion which  must  develop  between  the 
study  of  Nature  and  the  religious  life 
of  man,  between  our  present  and  future 
knowledge  of  Nature  and  the  develop- 
ment of  our  religious  conceptions  and 
beliefs. 

We  are  now  in  a  process  of  readjust- 
ment between  the  issues  of  two  lines  of 
thought,  which  are  almost  as  old  as  hu- 
man history;  between  laws  derived 
from  Nature  which  were  discovered  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  as 
to  the  origin  of  man,  and  traditional 
laws  which  when  traced  to  their  very 
beginnings  we  find  to  have  been  purely 

s 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

of  human  conception.  Let  us  imagine 
our  descendants  three  or  four  hundred 
years  hence  looking  back  on  the  spir- 
itual and  intellectual  history  of  man; 
with  larger  perspective  they  will  sepa- 
rate these  two  grand  thought  move- 
ments. 

First,  the  Oriental  movement, 
marked  by  Oriental  lack  of  curiosity 
about  natural  law,  a  great  moral  and 
spiritual  movement  developing  three 
thousand  years  before  Christ  along  the 
Nile,  the  Tigris,  and  Euphrates,  out  of 
five  thousand  years  of  hard  human  ex- 
perience, and  expressed  in  Judea  in  the 
faith  that  Nature  is  the  continuous 
handiwork  of  God,  in  a  supreme  stand- 
ard of  righteousness,  the  moral  duty 
being  finally  summed  in  the  simple 
phrase,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself."  This  was  the  spir- 
itual redemption  of  man,  which  left 

6 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

the  laws  of  his  physical  welfare  un- 
known and  uncared  for. 

The  second  movement  begins  six 
centuries  before  Christ  in  the  inquiring 
mind  of  the  West,  which  is  always  char- 
acterized by  intense  curiosity  about 
Nature.  This  movement  is  the  search 
for  natural  law.  Its  rapid  progress 
among  the  Greeks  terminates  with  the 
fall  of  Greece.  It  is  expressed  in  Ca- 
to's  reply  to  Scipio:  "My  wisdom  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  I  follow  Nature, 
the  best  of  guides,  as  I  would  a  God  and 
am  loyal  to  her  commands/'  After 
nineteen  centuries  it  revives  with  Co- 
pernicus and  Galileo  and  culminates 
in  Darwin.  Man  is  again  perceived  as 
a  part  of  Nature:  in  the  study  of  Na- 
ture man  finds  intellectual  delight;  in 
the  laws  of  Nature  man  finds  his  physi- 
cal well-being;  man  through  Nature 
becomes  the  redeemer  of  physical  man. 

7 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

The  Augustinian  theology  was  im- 
bued with  a  deeply  theistic  view  of  Na- 
ture, a  view  which  the  modern  Church 
professes  but  does  not  profoundly  be- 
lieve nor  live  by.  As  shown  by  Aubrey 
Moore,  Augustine  was  entirely  sound 
in  counselling  the  entire  separation  of 
these  two  great  lines  of  thought,  the 
natural  and  the  spiritual: 

"It  very  often  happens,"  says  Au- 
gustine, "that  there  is  some  question 
as  to  the  earth  or  the  sky,  or  the  other 
elements  of  this  world  .  .  .  respecting 
which  one  who  is  not  a  Christian  has 
knowledge  derived  from  most  certain 
reasoning  or  observation"  [that  is,  a 
natural  philosopher],  "and  it  is  very 
disgraceful  and  mischievous  and  of  all 
things  to  be  carefully  avoided,  that  a 
Christian,  speaking  of  such  matters  as 
being  according  to  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures, should  be  heard  by  an  unbeliever 

8 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

talking  such  nonsense  that  the  unbe- 
liever, perceiving  him  to  be  as  wide 
from  the  mark  as  east  from  west,  can 
hardly  restrain  himself  from  laughing." 

Augustine  held  what  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  pristine  faith  in  Nature  as 
a  manifestation  of  the  divine. 

This  pristine  theistic  view  is  founded 
on  passages  in  Genesis,  especially  Gen- 
esis 2  :  15  and  Genesis  3  :  19.  These 
passages  show  that  Nature,  typified  by 
the  Garden,  gives  man  his  sustenance, 
and  yet,  as  it  has  to  be  won  by  the 
sweat  of  the  brow,  man's  energy  or  art 
must  work  with  Nature.  These  pas- 
sages, as  Bishop  Boyd-Carpenter  ob- 
serves in  his  inspiring  studies  of  Dante, 
are  also  the  foundation  of  the  famous 
lines  in  the  "Divine  Comedy"  in  which 
the  poet  expresses  the  relation  between 
the  theistic  view  of  Nature  and  scien- 
tific or  philosophical  inquiry. 

9 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

"...  He  thus  made  reply: 
'Philosophy,  to  an  attentive  ear, 
Clearly  points  out,  not  in  one  part  alone, 
How  imitative  Nature  takes  her  course 
From  the  celestial  Mind,  and  from  its  art: 
And  where  her  laws1  the  Stagirite  unfolds, 
Not  many  leaves  scann'd  o'er,  observing  well 
Thou  shalt  discover,  that  your  art  on  her 
Obsequious  follows,  as  the  learner  treads 
In  his  instructor's  step;  so  that  your  art 
Deserves  the  name  of  second  in  descent 
From  God.    These  two,  if  thou  recall  to  mind 
Creation's  holy  book,2  from  the  beginning 
Were  the  right  source  of  life  and  excellence 
To  human  kind.  .  .  /  " 

The  preceding  is  Cary's  version.8 
Another  version  of  this  passage  is  that 
of  Longfellow.4 

Aristotle  ("Physics,"  ii,  2).  "Art  mimics  na- 
ture." 

2  Gen.  2:15;  3  fig. 

3  "  The  Vision  of  Dante  Alighieri."  Translated  by 
the  Rev.  H.  F.  Cary  for  Everyman's  Library. 
Canto  XI,  Hell,  p.  47.  "Dante's  Divine  Comedy," 
with  an  Introduction  and  Notes  by  Edmund  G. 
Gardner,  M.A.  (London,  J.  M.  Dent  &  Sons,  Ltd. 
New  York,  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.) 

*  Longfellow's  Translation,  Inf.,  Vol.  XI,  pp.  97- 
108. 

10 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

"'Philosophy,'  he  said,  fto  him  who  needs  it, 
Noteth,  not  only  in  one  place  alone, 
After  what  manner  Nature  takes  her  course 
From  Intellect  Divine  and  from  its  art; 
And  if  thy  Physics  carefully  thou  notest, 
After  not  many  pages  shalt  thou  find, 
That  this  your  art  as  far  as  possible 
Follows,  as  the  disciple  doth  the  master, 
So  that  your  art  is,  as  it  were,  God's  grandchild, 
From  these  two,  if  thou  bringest  to  thy  mind 
Genesis  at  the  beginning,  it  behooves 
Mankind  to  gain  their  life,  and  to  advance/  " 

As  Bishop  Boyd-Carpenter  remarks, 
Virgil's  answer  to  Dante  is  to  this  ef- 
fect: We  learn  from  philosophy  that 
the  operations  of  Nature  proceed  di- 
rectly from  God,  and  those  of  art  in- 
directly, because  art  consists  in  the 
imitation  of  Nature.  ("Inferno/'  xi, 
pp.  97-105,  Longfellow's  translation.) 
Again  the  Bible  teaches  us  that  it  is  by 
these  two  principles,  Nature  and  art, 
that  the  system  of  man's  life  should  be 

ordered.    ("Inferno,"  xi,  pp.  106-108.) 

11 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

If  wc  are  guided  by  the  spirit  of  Au- 
gustine and  of  Dante  we  cannot  fail  to 
see  that  the  Church  has  passed  through 
a  very  critical  period  of  scepticism  as 
regards  Nature.  This  is  perhaps  an 
original  view  of  scepticism,  but  there 
is  no  way  of  evading  its  application; 
if  Nature  represents  the  wisdom  and 
goodness  of  God,  to  be  blind  to  its 
interpretation  is  a  form  of  scepticism 
—  devout  and  well-intentioned  though 
it  may  be.  Especially  the  Roman 
Church  has  been  led  away  from  its 
pristine  faith  in  Nature  as  a  mani- 
festation of  the  divine,  while  the  Prot- 
estant Church,  in  consequence  of  this 
loss  of  faith  during  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, has  suffered  a  loss  of  influence  in 
the  world  which  it  will  require  a  long 
period  to  regain.  If  the  laws  of  Na- 
ture are  manifestations  of  the  divine 
power  and  wisdom,  as  we  proclaim  in 

12 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

our  services,  the  attitude  of  the  Church 
toward  these  laws  should  not  be  hesi- 
tant, defensive,  or  apologetic,  but  act- 
ive, receptive,  and  aggressive. 

Considered  in  this  way  the  great  sci- 
entific inquiry  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  so  far  from  being 
regarded  as  destructive,  is  a  construct- 
ive, purifying,  and  regenerating  move- 
ment; it  takes  us  back  to  the  lost  faith 
of  our  fathers,  a  faith  which  spiritu- 
alized the  Old  Testament,  a  faith  which 
finds  in  Nature  a  manifestation  of  the 
divine    order    of    things.     If  Newton 
opened  to  us  the  new  heavens,  Darwin 
showed    us    the    new    earth,    Pasteur 
showed  the  way  to  the  physical  re- 
demption of  man.    If  we  were  to  re- 
write the  Litany  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, for  the  passage,  "From  plague, 
pestilence,    and    famine,   good    Lord, 
deliver  us,"  we  should  read,  "From 

13 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

ignorance  of  Thy  Laws  and  disobedi- 
ence of  Thy  Commands,  good  Lord, 
deliver  us." 

From  the  standpoint  of  this  older 
teaching  of  Augustine  and  Dante  the 
life-work  of  Louis  Pasteur  was  more 
than  humanitarian,  it  was  more  than 
scientific,  it  was  religious.  He  regarded 
natural  processes  which  in  their  su- 
perficial view  appear  relentless,  cruel, 
wholly  inexplicable,  as  part  of  a  possi- 
bly beneficent  order  of  things;  he  again 
revealed  through  his  profound  insight, 
through  his  unparalleled  toil,  discour- 
agement, and  even  scorn  on  the  part  of 
his  contemporaries,  deeper  laws,  which 
are  beneficent,  protective,  and  restora- 
tive in  action.  He  was  the  evangelist 
of  Osier's  "third  gospel5': 

"And  the  third  gospel,  the  gospel  of 
his  body,  which  brings  man  into  rela- 
tion with  Nature — -a  true  evangelion, 

14 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

the  glad  tidings  of  a  conquest  beside 
which  all  others  sink  into  insignificance 
— is  the  final  conquest  of  Nature,  out  of 
which  has  come  man's  redemption  of 


man.  .  .  . 


t< 


If  in  the  memorable  phrase  of  the 
Greek  philosopher,  Prodicus,  'That 
which  benefits  human  life  is  God,'  we 
may  see  in  this  new  gospel  a  link  be- 
twixt us  and  the  crowning  race  of  those 
who  eye  to  eye  shall  look  on  knowledge, 
and  in  whose  hand  Nature  shall  be  an 
open  book,  an  approach  to  the  glorious 
day  of  which  Shelley  sings  so  gloriously: 

'Happiness 
And  Science  dawn  though  late  upon  the  earth; 
Peace  cheers  the  mind,  health  renovates  the 

frame; 
Disease  and  pleasure  cease  to  mingle  here, 
Reason  and  passion  cease  to  combat  there, 
Whilst  mind  unfettered  o'er  the  earth  extends 
Its  all-subduing  energies,  and  wields 
The  sceptre  of  a  vast  dominion  there/  " 

15 


THE  NEW  ORDER 

Should  we  not  institute  a  new  order 
of  sainthood  for  men  like  Pasteur? 
Could  we  find  one  more  eminent  for 
consecration,  piety,  and  service  in  life 
and  character  than  this  devout  investi- 
gator? Entrance  to  this  order  would 
be  granted  to  those  who  through  the 
study  of  Nature  have  extended  the 
bounds  of  human  knowledge,  have  be- 
stowed incomparable  blessings  on  the 
human  race,  have  relieved  human  suf- 
fering, have  saved  or  prolonged  human 
life.  Would  not  a  statue  of  Louis 
Pasteur  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  John 
the  Divine  proclaim  the  faith  of  the 
modern  Church  that  the  two  great  his- 
toric movements  of  Love  and  of  Knowl- 
edge, of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual 
and  the  physical  well-being  of  man,  are 
harmonious  parts  of  a  single  and  eternal 
truth?    On  the  base  of  such  a  statue 

might  be  inscribed  the  words  written 

16 


OF  SAINTHOOD 

by    Pasteur   in   the   most    perplexing 
period  of  his  life: 

"God  grant  that  by  my  persever- 
ing LABORS  I  MAY  BRING  A  LITTLE 
STONE  TO  THE  FRAIL  AND  ILL-ASSURED 
EDIFICE  OF  OUR  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THOSE 
DEEP  MYSTERIES  OF  LlFE  AND  DEATH 
WHERE  ALL  OUR  INTELLECTS  HAVE 
SO   LAMENTABLY  FAILED." 


17 


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